


Gravestone

by ChasetheSun2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, M/M, Other, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22870600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasetheSun2/pseuds/ChasetheSun2
Summary: It's been three months and he hasn't moved from that spot.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46





	Gravestone

“...Dave.”

No reply.

“Dave, it's been three months.”

The figure cloaked in red didn't even look up. Rose sighed, kneeling down in the grass beside him.

“Dave, you need to come home now.” She said, her voice unnaturally gentle and soft.

“No,” Dave mumbled. There was something small and shiny in his hands. He turned it between his fingers, preferring to blind himself with the glint off the sunny metal than look up at his sister. “Leave me alone.”

“You know I can't do that.” Rose chided him. She reached out a hand and Dave flinched away as she came into his narrow field of vision. Another sigh, and she pulled away again, hand retracting to stick back into the pocket of her duster. Eventually, Rose gave up the ghost and decided to just sit with him.

They were silent together in the grass for a long moment. The only sound was the wind, rustling through a nearby copse of trees, just outside the low stone wall with the creaky gate that surrounded the plot of land in which they currently sat. They all came here eventually, for one reason or another. Dave just came here a little sooner than most. Rose had hoped so, so fiercely that Dave would never have had to come here at all, but here they were.

Finally, Dave spoke. His voice was quiet, and he swallowed every few words as if to choke down things he didn't want to say.

“Remember when we first got here,” He said quietly. There was no rambling anymore. Rose missed it. “And..and all the trolls were sure they'd burn, because of the sun--”

“He was the first one to step into the sunlight.” Rose smiled and her chest clenched. No, She told herself. She had to be the strong one here. She took a deep breath, swallowing down the hard lump that'd lodged itself into her throat. They'd just been kids then.

Dave gave a noise that could have been a laugh, or at the very least a sob hidden under wet laughter. A mockery of a smile pulled at his lips, even as he continued twisting and turning the shining metal ring in his hands. "Yeah." He muttered. "Should've seen his face. I told him if he didn't, I'd push him. So he did, and--" His voice broke and he had to take a second to look skyward, blinking back tears. Rose looked away to grant him some moment of privacy.

"Dave." She said softly. "I know this is hard to hear. But you need to come home...sitting here won't bring him back."

"And what if it could?" Dave sounded thirteen again, voice high and crackling under the emotional strain. He looked to her for the first time, anger and pain so obvious on a face so normally bland that it hurt Rose to look at him for a moment. His hands were shaking, she noticed, when she couldn't meet his eyes anymore. His hands were shaking and he was clutching that thing in his hands so tightly Rose was almost worried that it would break. "What if it could bring him back? What if I could just--"

"No." Rose's voice was firm and harsh. "You know he told you not to. He told you not to do this to yourself, Dave. He knew--"

"FUCK what he knew!" Dave was yelling. Dave was yelling and there were tears streaming down his cheeks and jesus christ, Rose couldn't take this. Her eyes stung and she grit her teeth together so hard it hurt as her vision blurred. Dave kept yelling and his voice broke harder and harder, shattered glass robbing his mouth of whole words. "If he knew how I felt he'd still fucking be here, wouldn't he?! He wouldn't - he wouldn't have fucking done this to me - to us - just - leaving me here like this, who the fuck does he think he is? --Was-"

Dave corrected himself, and that was it. He lifted his shades to wipe his eyes as sobs finally broke through the glass shield of his composure, racking his frame with heaving motions that swayed him to lay his head on Rose's chest. She covered her mouth, chin wobbling as she wrapped a tight arm around her brother's trembling frame.

"I want him back," Dave whispered breathlessly into her jacket, now stained with his tears.

Rose didn't trust herself to speak; she just nodded.


End file.
